1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a universal download language for use by a network appliance. More particularly still, the invention relates to a universal language that can be received over the Internet and executed by a variety of audio appliances for playing encoded audio files.
2. Background of the Invention
The proliferation of the Internet in recent years has also generated the development of new technologies that take advantage of the Internet's world wide communication abilities. For example, audio streaming has made it possible to use a computer to listen to Internet-based radio stations which are located anywhere in the world. Of course, using one's personal laptop or desktop computer system to listen to music is acceptable, not always entirely the most satisfactory means for enjoying music. First, it requires the user to have a computer. Although many people have computers, not everyone does. Second, even if a person has a computer, the computer must be on. Booting up a computer may take several minutes and thus may be an annoying process just to listen to music. Additionally, a person using his or her computer to listen to music is generally limited in terms of where the music can be heard (i.e., in the general vicinity of the computer itself).
Because of these and other reasons, audio players have become available. By way of a definition, an “audio player” (also referred to as an audio “appliance”) is generally any device through which audio can be heard. With this definition, a laptop or desktop computer could be considered an audio player. In addition to general purpose conventional computer systems, audio players may also include equipment specially designed to receive an audio file from a network and play it. For example, MP3 players can be downloaded with an MP3 encoded audio file and played through a pair of headphones connected to the player. The encoding process involves compressing the audio information so that a smaller, compressed file can be stored and transmitted over a network rather than the original audio information.
It is common during the development of new technologies for competing implementations to be offered. Sometimes, one implementation “wins” out in the market place. During the infancy of the video cassette recorder (“VCR”) development, VHS and BETA MAX formats were available, but in the end, VHS became the defacto standard. Other times, more than one implementation survives and the market accommodates multiple implementations.
At present in the Internet audio market, numerous different encoding schemes are available to encode an audio file. The MP3 and AAC standards are two examples of such encoding schemes. Of course, once an audio file is encoded, it must be decoded to be played. Further, the particular decoding methodology must generally be the reciprocal process to how the file was encoded. Thus, if a song, for example, is encoded using one particular encoding technique, it must be decoded using that same technique. Multiple encoding/decoding schemes complicates managing, downloading and playing encoded audio files. For a person to be able to listen to a desired audio file encoded with a particular encoding scheme, that person's audio player must be capable of decoding the file according to the encoding scheme used to encode the file in the first place. With multiple encoding schemes used by audio content providers, audio players conceivably would have to implement all of the various decoding schemes to be able to provide the person the ability to listen to all possible audio content. Currently, there are approximately nine encoding/decoding schemes and thus an audio player would have to include all nine schemes and enough memory to store all such decoders. As more encoding/decoding schemes become available, this burden on the players increases.
Further complicating matters is the fact that more than one off-the-shelf hardware platform is available for suppliers to include in their audio players. Currently, Texas Instruments, Cirrus Logic and possibly others provide a chip set that designed for audio players to decode and play audio files. All else being equal, each audio file may have to be encoded differently to work on each such hardware platform. In other words, an audio file encoded for a Texas Instruments hardware platform may not work on a Cirrus Logic hardware platform, and vice versa.
Thus, with multiple encoding/decoding formats and multiple hardware platforms, managing and providing an efficient audio distribution scheme can be complicated indeed. Each song may need to be encoded multiple different ways to be accessible and usable by audio players with different decoding algorithms programmed into them. Alternatively, audio players may have to be programmed with all possible decoding algorithms. Even then, a problem arises as to what to do with existing audio players when new encoding/decoding schemes become available. In short, this area is in dire need for an improvement that solves this problem. Despite the advantage such a solution would provide, to date no such solution is known to exist.